Break Point (3 page)

Archibald Cross was a self-made millionaire who had joined the club in the 1940s and remained a lifelong member. In his will, he had bequeathed the trophy to the club on the condition that a tournament—the Archibald Cross Memorial Junior Tennis Tournament—be held exactly one year after the day of his death. The junior tennis player who won the tournament would be awarded the cup.

Because old Mr. Cross had been so wealthy, rumors flew that he had hidden something in a secret compartment in the base of the trophy. Some said it was a bar of pure gold. Some said it was a check for a million dollars. Some said it was the first nickel he had ever earned, working as a shoeshine boy in the Dirty Thirties.

“I could definitely use the money,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Maddy. “Me too.”

I felt a pang of embarrassment, because I knew Maddy would give the money to her mom to pay the club's debt. Meanwhile, I'd been thinking of all the ways I could use the money to further my own tennis career—hire elite coaches, sign up for winter training camps in Florida, fly to international tournaments and buy all the things I needed to give me an edge against the preppy rich kids like Rex who dominated the tennis circuit.

I checked my watch. It was 11:50, and I still needed a shower. I couldn't be late for my shift, or I'd catch it from Maddy's mom. I finished my soda and got up. But before I left the common room, I took one last glance at the gleaming silver Archibald Cross Memorial Cup.

Suddenly I wanted it more than any other prize I had ever played for. And it wasn't for the glory of the cup. It was for the money I imagined might be stashed inside.

Money wasn't something I had thought about much as a kid. But I was sixteen now, and some of life's realities were starting to hit me. I couldn't help thinking that a stack of dough would solve a whole lot of problems.

chapter four

After two subway transfers and a bus ride from Uncle Phil's place in Mississauga, I arrived for the Toronto tournament at the posh Donalda Club. Manicured lawns, leather furniture, granite hallways—that about summed up the Donalda Club. It was a long way from the homey atmosphere of the Bytowne Tennis Club back in Ottawa. It was an even longer way from the rundown bungalow where I lived with my mom and my sisters.

I felt antsy from being cooped up in public transit too long. I couldn't wait to hit a few balls and loosen up my muscles before my first game. The woman at the reception desk pointed the way to the locker room and to my assigned practice court. The sun was shining, and the temperature was in the low twenties. I was feeling good about the day.

The U16 tournament at the Donalda had a four-star ranking, which meant the best kids in the province would be competing. It also meant that if I finished high, I would earn a bunch of points to bump up my provincial ranking. That was important because the Donalda was my last chance to get my ranking into the top thirty-two provincially, which would qualify me to play in the Ontario finals at the end of July.

If I ranked in the top eight at the provincials, I would earn a spot in the national championships in August, which was my real goal. All the scouts from the big American colleges would be hanging out at the nationals, trying to spot talent. If I impressed a scout, I could win a scholarship to a US school. Then I would be able to play on the American college circuit, hopefully score some big wins and even find a corporate sponsor. It was the best route for a kid like me, who didn't have a lot of money, to turn pro.

On the other hand, if I failed to get to the nationals, I'd probably end up studying to be a plumber at some smalltime college in Canada that didn't even have a tennis team.

Getting into the top thirty-two was a big jump from my current ranking of forty-fifth. But I believed I could make it. I didn't think my ranking reflected my true ability. A lot of the kids had been competing since they were seven or eight years old. They had reached the top of their game and were starting to plateau. Me, I'd grown up playing a bunch of sports—soccer, basketball, volleyball, track and field. I'd played pretty much anything my school or the local community center offered to keep me off the streets while my parents were at work.

I'd picked up a tennis racket for the first time at thirteen. At first the wonky scoring system threw me for a loop. For some strange reason, zero is called “love.” From there the points go fifteen, thirty, forty, game. If the players are tied at forty, it's called “deuce,” and you need to score two more consecutive points to win the game. The first player to win six games takes the set, but you have to win by a margin of two games. Two out of three sets wins the match.

After I got used to the weirdness of the scoring system, I found out I loved tennis. From fourteen on, it was all I wanted to play. As far as I was concerned, my game was on the rise. I was on a steep learning curve, and I intended to blow past my competitors.

Especially Rex.

I spent an hour hitting practice balls, then showered and showed up for my first game at 1:00 pm. My opponent was a skinny fifteen-year-old who hadn't had his growth spurt yet. He looked like he desperately wanted to be back in the U14 category. I hammered him with my serves until he gave up trying to return them. Whenever he served, I hit the returns hard down the line. Same shot every time. I pummeled him 6-1, 6-0. The kid never stood a chance.

In the second round, I was matched to a hulking sixteen-year-old with a powerful serve, but no speed in his feet. Wielding the racket in his meaty hand, he looked like a linebacker on vacation at summer tennis camp. I responded to his serves by sticking my racket into the path of the ball and hoping it rebounded somewhere on his side of the net. Technically, it's called a “block.” I called it my deflector shield. If I could just get the ball into play, I knew I could beat him on the rally by making him run. He took the first set, started to tire by the second and was wheezing by the third. 4-6, 6-4, 6-2. My victory.

That evening, I sat for an hour in Uncle Phil's hot tub, drank three quarts of Gatorade and rubbed all my muscles down with A535. I was sore. But I had no joint pain and no injuries. I was in good form for the next day's quarterfinals.

I arrived early that morning, signed in and got started on my warm-up. I needed to loosen up and calm my nerves, because I knew the competition was about to get a lot tougher. The kid I faced in the quarterfinals was Bruno Chan. Bruno was ranked fifteenth in the province. He was known for his lightning speed. No matter where you put the ball, Bruno would get a racket on it. That was his biggest strength. Bruno's biggest weakness was his lack of accuracy. Too often his shots bounced long or wide, giving his opponent points on unforced errors. I knew I needed to collect those points to win the game.

I arrived at my court a few minutes before game time and looked around to see if Maddy might have come by to watch me. She wasn't there, but I spotted Rex hanging around with his coach.

At 10:00 am, the match started. For the first couple of games, I kept trying to sneak the ball past Bruno. I would put it right down the line, or crosscourt in the far corner where I thought he couldn't reach it. But those lightning-fast feet lived up to their reputation. Worse, I kept hitting balls outside the line, because I was trying too hard to score a winner. Midway through the first set, with the score a miserable 0-3 in Bruno's favor, I realized that if I wanted to win, I had to stop giving away points against myself.

From then on, I stuck to what I was good at—big serves and hard hits from the baseline. I drove the ball into his court with all my force and waited for him to make a mistake. I soon found that the harder I hit it, the more often Bruno's returns went flying out of bounds. I couldn't recover from my deficit on the first set. But I won the next two, 6-4 and 6-3. Bruno looked surprised to be overturned by a kid ranked so far below him. But he shook my hand like a good sport.

The semifinal match lay ahead of me. My opponent, Rex Hunter.

We shook hands before the match and wished each other a good game. We were supposed to be pals, I guess, since we belonged to the same club. But I didn't feel any loyalty to Rex. He'd been a member at our crosstown rival, the Rideau Tennis Club, since he was a little kid. He'd only switched to our club this year, after his family moved into a brand-new condo in the neighborhood. They wanted to support their local club, his dad said, as if they were doing us all a big favor by gracing us with their presence.

I won the toss and took the first serve. High on my toes, I smashed the ball over the net.
Blew it right by him,
I thought. But no, the ball came winging back, catching me off guard. I hit a defensive return. Rex charged the net and finessed a drop shot that pitter-patted into the forecourt. I dove to reach it but couldn't get there in time. 0-15.

That shook my concentration, and I hit my next serve into the net. Second serve, I took it easy. Hit a nice, safe, soft one that Rex sent zinging deep to my backhand. I got a racket on it but netted the ball. 0-30.

How could it be love-30 when I was pouring my heart into every shot, and Rex was lounging there at the baseline, grinning as though he was humoring me by even picking up his racket? I gritted my teeth and blasted my hardest serve at him. It must have clocked in at 120 mph. Rex sent it back, deep. Fine. I could play the baseline. That was my kind of game. I whipped it back crosscourt. Rex went down the line. I tried for crosscourt, but the ball bounced midcourt instead. Easy hit for Rex. He sent me running to the opposite corner. I got there but didn't have time to make a good shot. I hit it back to the midcourt. Too easy. Rex finished me off with a surgical strike to the far corner. 0-40. Triple break point.

I forced myself to take a deep breath. Refocus. I wished I had some kind of trick serve up my sleeve. But all I knew how to do was hit with all my might. So that's what I did. Rex returned with a block shot. I hit it deep. He sliced it back. The ball bounced low, with a ton of spin. I dug it out and sent it high. It was a perfect overhead setup for Rex. He smashed it into the far corner. Game.

Rex had broken me on the very first game.

Welcome to the next level of competition, Connor. Think you can take it?

Second game, it was Rex's turn to serve. The ball came at me fast, but not too fast. I decided to play it safe. I hit a good, hard return, nothing fancy. Too late, I looked up and saw that Rex had charged to the forecourt. My ball had barely cleared the net when he returned it with a volley at a sharp angle that even lightning-fast Bruno Chan couldn't have reached. 15-0.

Serve and volley? Serve and volley went out in the 1990s. No one played serve and volley anymore.

Correction. Rex played serve and volley.

He played it like he was on fire.

The match went on like that. I blasted my hardest shots at him. Rex flitted around the court like it was his personal dance floor, hitting volleys, drop shots, dinks and slices. He had all the moves, and he was having a blast. I felt like a puny little kid trying to beat up on his big brother.

When the smoke cleared, Rex had given me a whipping. I'd lost the first set 6-2 and the second set a miserable 6-1.

Rex advanced to the finals. But I didn't stay to watch him play. Instead, I slunk back to the Greyhound station for the long bus ride home.

That night, I checked the results on the Internet. In the top spot, in bold type, stood the name of the new number-one kid in the province—Rex Hunter. I had to scroll way down to find my name—Connor Trent, ranked thirtieth.

I should have been happy. I'd made the top thirty-two and qualified for the provincial championships. I tried to tell myself that I had achieved my goal for the weekend. But I knew I was still miles away from beating Rex.

chapter five

It was 6:00 am the Monday after the Donalda tournament. I'd just finished the four-mile run from my house to the tennis club, and I was planning on grabbing the ball machine from the equipment room for an hour of practice before my shift started at seven. But as I entered the club, dripping with sweat, a noise from Mrs. Sharma's office made me poke my head inside. Maddy was sitting at her mom's desk, watching the security video from the night of the break-in.

“Hey, Connor. Look at this,” she said.

I came closer, but not too close. I didn't want to drip sweat all over her.

“What about it?” I asked. I didn't see anything different from the first time we had watched it—five guys in ski masks, swaggering across the little parking area in front of the club. They reached the chain-link fence, had some kind of a discussion, then one guy jumped on the fence and the others followed. They climbed over, and that's where the security camera lost them.

“Look,” Maddy said. She rewound the video to where the guys were crossing the parking lot. “Look at the kid at the back, on the left.”

The guy was chubbier than the others, and now that she'd pointed him out, I could see that his walk was different too. He ambled along with a sort of lilt to his steps.

“He's walking funny,” I said.

She nodded. “Yeah. And look what he's wearing.”

I squinted at the tv. The video was blurry, so it was hard to make out details.

“Is that a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt?”
Weird
, I thought.

“Yeah,” said Maddy. “I think I know that kid.”

“Seriously?” I reached for the phone to call the cops, but Maddy stopped me.

“Hang on. I want to talk to him first.”

“Why?”

“Quinte's a little…different.”

“So what?”

“You'll see when you meet him. Just trust me, okay?”

The house Maddy took me to that afternoon was a droopy little bungalow half a block down from the nice two-storey brick house where Maddy and her family lived. The street was in an older neighborhood where lots of people had renovated their houses to make them bigger and swankier, adding things like sun decks or stone landscaping. Some houses had even been knocked down and replaced with tall, boxy duplexes squashed into tiny yards. But every once in a while, you found a house like this one. It was a sad little house, left behind by its neighbors, with peeling paint and a sagging front porch.